I hear it takes just a little drop…
Many people worry that if they do what they love whole-heartedly, they will kill it.
It must be a slow death. No one has ever said that being handed that first paycheck for publishing their novel felt like getting shot. But perhaps they worry that turning in draft after draft of their second book, facing criticism and rejection and still having to pump out more pages would poison their love for writing. But so what if it does?
It’s likely that you’re not still dating your high school sweetheart or driving that first car you were so crazy about. You’ve gotten over a few books, movies, and albums that you could consume on repeat when you first discovered them. And I would bet you have some favorite foods you no longer order when you go out. Maybe overuse is what did them in, or it’s possible that you just moved on from them naturally.
I’ve found that for each love I manage to kill, new ones always spring up. Old passions walk out into the ocean to drown just as new ones are arriving over the horizon. Author and poet Oscar Wilde addresses the benign inevitability of this lifelong process. He writes, “Some do the deed with many tears/ And some without a sigh/ For each man kills the thing he loves/ Yet each man does not die.”
I’m sure you’ve heard others express concern for killing their love of something. The mantra goes like this: “I love photography (or dancing or cooking or coding!)– but I could never do it for a living because then it wouldn’t love it. I do it for me, but if I did it for work that would take all of the joy out of it.”
Oh, really? It appears that for some, indulging in his or her passion is less important than avoiding pain. But that just doesn’t seem balanced to me.
I can’t quite wrap my mind around the notion that work is a special category, an activity where one should spend half of their waking life doing something that he or she is willing to hate (or at best feel meh about).
Maybe they are concerned that doing something often, doing it for money, doing it under someone else’s scrutiny and advice, or doing it on a timeline will necessarily eek all the fun out of things.
I’m not convinced.
“Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.” Mae West
With the exception of doing something only for pay, all of those work-associated traits make you better at things. Frequent practice, constructive critique, and being accountable to a schedule are all factors that improve performance. Who wouldn’t want to improve at doing what they love, even if it’s just a hobby?
And this mentality applies to activities other than work too. It applies to every dog-lover who feels that actually having a pet would be too much hassle. It applies to every musician who practices incessantly, but refuses to play an at open mic night. It applies to all of the people who insist they train jiu jitsu “just for fun.”
So don’t get too hung up on aphorisms like everything in moderation, or worry that immersing yourself in your craft will necessarily result in poisoning it with too much of a good thing. Could it happen? Sure. But you’ll recover. And if things go well and you don’t manage to drown your affections, the positive outcome will be well worth the risk…
“Mr. Wonka: “Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted.”
Charlie Bucket: “What happened?”
Mr. Wonka: “He lived happily ever after.”
Emily Corso MMA 